Fonepay to bring mobile wallet from January 21

Fonepay will introduce a mobile wallet from January 21.

"A mobile payment switching system, Fonepay will work as a wallet for customers, who will be able to transfer money or pay for their purchase," said Biswas Dhakal, who is president of F1 Soft International that has powered Fonepay.

The wallet — a uniquely designed platform — will facilitate customers of any bank and also the unbanked customer to pay nationally from Nabil Bank, Sunrise Bank and Machhapuchchhre Bank initially, according to chief executive of Fonepay Asgar Ali. "Within three months, we will have more than half a dozen banks as members."

"A customer of one bank can pay a merchant acquired by another bank, with ‘Fonepay’," he said, adding a customer, who receives money directly in the mobile phone, can deposit it to a bank account, cash out using any associated agent network, or utilise that amount for acquiring any service associated with Fonepay like merchant payment, utility payment, person to person transfer or can store it in the wallet account for future purposes.

Powered by F1 Soft International — one of the finalists for the 2012 Red Herring Top 100 Asia Award — Fonepay will also facilitate international remittance to transfer remitted amount directly to a mobile phone.

"The company is also planning to pay interest on the amount accumulated in the wallet account," Ali said, adding that Fonepay targets to serve in national and international money transfer services with low cost and efficient services that will help channel more remittance due to cost reduction.

One has to register with Fonepay to avail the service, which is easy, he added.

Currently, Fonepay has 22 member banks with a customer base of 1,500,000. The company has already partnered with nine remittance companies with more than 4,500 agent locations covering all parts of Nepal, besides the 13 international remittance companies for digital remittance, which covers more than 30 per cent of the market share.